Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: service

  • Saturday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The Gospel readings these past few days have warned of rather dire consequences for those who don’t live the Gospel message.  This section of Matthew’s Gospel spells out the urgency of the call to discipleship and the nearness of the Kingdom of God.  Yesterday, the foolish virgins were left out of the kingdom, with their Lord telling them he did not know them.  Today, those who would bury the talent get cast out of the kingdom, to wail and grind their teeth.  These consequences aren’t imaginary inconveniences.  Think of the pain and anguish that would cause one to wail and grind their teeth; imagine the heartbreak of our Lord telling us that he does not know us.

    When some people have been encouraged to take on a new ministry or share their gifts in some way, very often they will say, “Oh, I could never do that.”  Today Jesus says that kind of thinking isn’t kingdom thinking.  What today’s reading tells us is that there is no such thing as a “little gift.”  We are all called and gifted in some unique way, and we must praise God with that gift no matter what the gift is and no matter how insignificant it may seem.  We aren’t just encouraged to use our gifts when it would be nice, but warned that our gifts are essential to the kingdom, and that those who don’t use them aren’t part of that kingdom.

    So whether we have a gift that looks like ten talents, or five, or even one, the call is still the same.  No matter how awesome the giver may be, fear of failure can never be an excuse to bury our talent in a hole in the ground.  Every single talent must be reinvested in the kingdom, so that we can come together and bring forth a harvest of justice and peace and life and beauty.  Because, who wants to spend their eternity wailing and grinding their teeth?

  • Saturday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    One of the spiritual principles that often speaks to me is: “it’s not about me.”  It’s a spiritual principle I have to remind myself of often, because in our human weakness, we’re always thinking about ourselves first.  But here today, we have two wonderful Scriptural examples of this beautiful spiritual principle.  First we have Ruth, a foreigner, who came to the aid of her mother-in-law Naomi in her time of need.  Naomi had no heir, and her son, Ruth’s husband, had died. This left both of them in a very precarious position.  Neither of them had a male figure in their lives to afford them any legal status in that society, so that was very dangerous for them in that day and age.  And they were in the middle of a famine, which made things all the more frightening.  So Ruth could have gone her own way, returned to her land, and been safe, but she doesn’t: she takes care of Naomi anyway, offering to glean ears of grain so that they’ll have something to eat.  She didn’t have to do that, she could have left her mother-in-law high and dry, but she didn’t.

    Boaz, too, didn’t have to be so welcoming to Ruth.  It was expected in Jewish law that after the harvest, whatever was left on the stalks was to be left for the poor.  But he didn’t have to provide her with water, and see that the men didn’t take advantage of her.  But he did.

    All of this prefigures what Jesus was telling the people about the Pharisees in today’s Gospel.  These Pharisees did everything to be seen, because it was all about them.  They had the law, so they were teaching the right things, but not for the right reasons.  Do what they say, Jesus tells them, and not what they do.  Because it’s not about us.

  • The Ascension of the Lord

    The Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings 

    Have you ever been at a loss for words? Have you been in a situation that was so astounding that you were just … speechless? Hopefully it was for something astoundingly wonderful, as for the apostles as their Lord ascended to heaven. Can you imagine what was going through the disciples’ minds as they stood there watching the Ascension of the Lord? Think about all that they’ve been through. Three years following this Jesus whose words were compelling and whose miracles were amazing and whose way of life was uplifting. But still, there was something about him that they just never seemed to get. He said he was the Christ, the Anointed One, and so their strong cultural definition of the Messiah was something they projected onto Jesus, but time after time it just never fit. Then he gets arrested, tried in a farce of a proceeding, put to death like a common criminal and buried for three days. After that, he is no longer in the tomb, but has risen from the dead and appeared to them many times. Now they’re gathered forty days later, and he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit. They breathlessly ask the question that has always been on their minds, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” They still don’t get it.

    And so Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit again, and ascends into the sky. Can you imagine it? It’s like a roller coaster of emotions for them. Their heads had to be spinning, they had to be completely lost as to what to do now. First he was dead and buried, then he came back, and now he’s gone again. What on earth are they to do now? Well, the two mysterious men dressed in white garments have all the advice they’re going to get: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” It’s almost as if God is telling them, “You’ll see what comes next, just get on with it.” And so they do, and they’ll get more help next week on Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit. But until then, it’s enough for them and us to be a bit speechless.

    We should be a little speechless too. Honestly, I think these stories have become so engrained in our cultural experience of our religion that we just tend to treat them as nothing special. But we should be speechless, because the Ascension, as well as the Resurrection, are game-changers for us. Nothing like that ever happened before, and it made possible our eternity; the greatest gift we’ll ever have. We should be astounded!

    And then, like the apostles, we need to get on with it. Because the Ascension has very specific meaning for our mission. I think we get three directions in today’s feast. First, Christ promises us that he will be with us always. That’s what Jesus says to the disciples – and to us! – in the very last words of the very last verse of the very last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” This is such an essential point of faith for us to get: Jesus our Lord will be with us every day, every moment, right up to the end of the age. And he is present in our Church today. His abiding presence is with us when we gather in his name, when we worship, hear the Word proclaimed and celebrate the sacraments. And he is with us, too, when we serve others, being those hands and feet of Jesus in a tangible way.

    The second direction that the Ascension gives us is that Jesus has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us. He goes to heaven to pave the way, because we had lost the way, affected as we all are by original sin and by the sins of our life. Since we did not know the way, he prepares it for us: opening the door, so to speak, and greeting us. So we believers who have forged a relationship with our Lord can now look to him to see how to get to that heavenly reward. All we have to do is follow, and we will find ourselves in that place God intended for us from the beginning.

    And finally, the Ascension reminds us that the Christian Mission has been entrusted to our hands. Christ has ascended into heaven, he has returned to the Father. So, yes, on this feast of the Ascension of the Lord, we are rightly struck speechless, but now it’s time for us to take up the Cross, to preach the Word in our words and actions, and to witness to the joy of Christ’s presence among us. If people are ever going to come to know Christ, if they are ever going to be challenged to grow in their faith, if they are ever going to know that there is something greater than themselves, they’re going to have to see that witness in other people, and it needs to be us. We have to be transparent in our living so that people won’t be caught up on us, but will come through us to see Jesus, to see the Father, to experience the Spirit. We are the ones commanded to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…” The mission is entrusted to us now.

    The speechlessness has to be over. The Psalmist tells us that God mounts his throne to shouts of joy. We must be joyous in living our life as Christians, assured of God’s abiding presence until the end of time, looking forward to our heavenly reward, and living the mission for all to see. We must no longer be speechless, but instead be a blare of trumpets for the Lord!

  • Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel gives us a very interesting start to the Sacred Paschal Triduum.  This three-day-long-feast begins with a meal, which makes sense.  But it’s a meal interrupted by a very important teaching.  I think it’s fair to say that Jesus never did anything without also trying to teach something important in the process.  When he healed on the Sabbath, he was teaching that the Sabbath was not something to be observed for its own sake, but was for the glory of God and the recharging of people.  When he fed the thousands, he was teaching that there was nothing so impossible that God could not make it happen.  Even when he chose his disciples, he was teaching that people’s worth was defined by God and not by the things they have accomplished on their own.

    So when he interrupts this Passover supper to wash the disciples’ feet, he was trying to teach them something, and to put the meal and the teaching together in context.  Washing the feet of guests was a common practice in Jesus’ time.  In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration.  And they would travel that distance, not by car or train or even by beast of burden, but most often on foot.  The travelers’ feet would then become not only dirty from the dusty roads, but also hot and tired from the long journey.  It was a gesture of hospitality to wash the guests’ feet, but it was a gesture that was not usually supplied by the host of the gathering, but instead by someone much lower in stature, like a servant or slave.  But at the Last Supper, it is Jesus himself who wraps a towel around his waist, picks up the bowl and pitcher, and washes the feet of his friends.  So we are about to see that he wasn’t just washing their feet to get a job done or even to provide hospitality; he was dong this to give them an example of what Scripture scholars call kenosis.

    I had a Scripture teacher who always used to talk about kenosis.  During my seminary days, we went through some pretty rough times with the Church.  Just two weeks after we started, we had the tragedy of 9/11.  Along with the rest of the country, we all felt like the bottom had dropped out and nothing was really certain any more.  Then, the following spring, the sexual abuse scandal broke wide open, and so many of us wondered what we were getting ourselves into.  Many of us had personal tragedies as well, me included when both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer just one month apart from each other.  We ended our time in seminary with the tragic death of two of our brother seminarians in a car crash on the school grounds.  Life is like that, we all have things that we go through and we wonder why we go on, why we even try to live as disciples.  And I remember whenever we would express that, one of my Scripture teachers would always look at us and say, “It’s all about kenosis.”

    At first when we heard that we looked at him like most of you are looking at me right now.  But we came to know what kenosis meant.  It is a New Testament Greek word that basically means “self-emptying.”  It comes from the root word kenos which is used to describe places or vessels that are empty, or to describe people who are empty handed or arrive without a gift.  Kenosis in the New Testament sense is used to describe Jesus Christ, who as St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”  Christ emptied himself of the honor that was rightfully his as our God and took our own human form.  That’s kenosis.

    And he drove the point home as he finished this great act of service.  He says, “Do you realize what I have done for you?  You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.  If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.  I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”  If even our Lord who had the right to demand anything from us, to whom he gave everything, if even he would tie a towel around his waist and wash people’s feet, then we disciples, we followers of the Lord, we who would look for our reward with him, we must also be willing to do whatever it takes to bring people to salvation.  We’re not supposed to just watch the Mass be performed for us, we’re supposed to live the Mass every day of our lives in any place the Lord puts us, knowing that he walked that way before us, and that our reward will be great.  We, brothers and sisters, are called to kenosis in our own lives.

    But here’s the kicker: another aspect of our own call to kenosis is that sometimes we have to empty out the part of us that desperately wants to do everything for ourselves, and to let someone else minister to us in our need.  I told you about my parents both being sick when I was in seminary.  That was such a hard time for me, mostly because I was still really convinced that I could get through anything life threw at me on my own.  But I had to learn that sometimes I need to let my friends pick me up and carry me to Jesus when I couldn’t get there on my own.  I’m bad at that.  I’m like Peter – no one’s going to wash my feet.  But I learned that I have to get over that if I’m ever going to be empty enough for Christ to fill me up.  It’s not about me – and it can’t be about any of us, we who would take up our crosses to follow our Lord.

    There’s another part of this Gospel that really strikes me.  You heard me tell you about the practice of washing the feet of guests in Jesus’ day.  So when do you think their feet would be washed?  Immediately upon arriving, of course: their feet were dusty and tired from the journey.  But that’s not what happens here, is it?  The Gospel reading says that during the supper, Jesus rose, changed his clothes, and washed their feet.  That’s a detail that would really stick out to those hearing the story in that day, because they understood the practice.  Now Jesus didn’t wash their feet at that time because he forgot to do it when they arrived, or because he had just now noticed how filthy their feet were.  He had a very specific reason for washing their feet during the meal.  Because now that great act of kenosis would be forever intimately tied to the celebration of the Eucharist.  Because of the very precise timing of this act of service, we who receive the Eucharist now know that we are called to follow Jesus’ example and to pour ourselves out in service to our brothers and sisters.  Every time we are fed by our Lord, we must always remember that we are called by our Lord to empty ourselves and become the presence of Christ for those who share life with us.

    On this great night, as we begin the great three-day feast of our Savior’s triumph over sin and death, we come together to share a meal – the same meal he shared with his friends on that night so long ago.  And because we Catholics don’t simply remember this night with mere fond recollections of an ancient historical event, but instead by entering into the experience in all its fullness yet again, then we have to hear the same commandment Jesus gave his disciples: “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”  As we gather and come forward to do this in remembrance of Christ, may we also pour ourselves out each day for our brothers and sisters, lovingly washing their feet just as ours have been washed by our Saving Lord.

  • Saint Josaphat, Bishop & Martyr and Notre Dame Day of Service

    Saint Josaphat, Bishop & Martyr and Notre Dame Day of Service

    Today’s readings

    This morning we gather in the presence of a merciful and compassionate God, not a dishonest judge. We gather in prayer knowing that those prayers are heard and answered in God’s way, in God’s time. The exercise of perseverance in prayer is not so much to change God’s will as it is for us to come to know God’s will and to further our relationship with him. People of faith get answers to their prayers all the time: maybe not the answers they expected, but always the answers that are for their good, in the long run.

    Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Josaphat, a sixteenth century Basilian monk and Orthodox bishop of the church in what is present-day Belarus. He joined five other bishops in a cause seeking reunion with Rome. Other Orthodox monks, however, did not want union with Rome; they feared interference in liturgy and customs. But over time, using synods and other instruction, he was able to win many of the Orthodox in that area to the union. But the fight was far from over. A dissident faction of the church was formed, and they fomented opposition to Josaphat. Eventually the mob murdered him and threw his body into a river. The body was recovered and is now buried in St. Peter’s basilica. Josaphat is the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.

    So Josaphat’s mission of unity in the Church continues to this day. This task requires open dialogue and discussion, but also persistence in prayer. Every day more and more doors are being opened, and we continue to have faith that one day, Josaphat’s mission, and the mission of so many others, will finally achieve unity and will re-establish the one Church that Jesus came to establish.

    Today, on our Day of Service, we take our persistent prayer and manifest it in our work. As we come together to visit the nursing home or Ronald McDonald House, or make cards for those in military service, or make rosaries for the sick, our presence and concern may be the way God is answering someone’s prayers. As we engage in whatever we have signed up to do today, God may give us gifts that answer prayers we didn’t even know we had in our hearts. One thing is certain: when we pray persistently and work for the kingdom of God, God can take our faith and do great things with it. He did with Saint Josaphat, and he will with us.

  • Holy Thursday: The Scandal of the Cross

    Holy Thursday: The Scandal of the Cross

    Today’s readings

    I love what Jesus says to Peter after Peter initially refuses to have his feet washed. “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” I kind of feel like that’s what could be said about the entirety of our faith. What we are taught very rarely makes sense at the first presentation, but later, when we have eyes opened up by the Resurrection, well, then things start to fall into place.

    So I want to start my reflection on these three holy days, this Sacred Paschal Triduum, with the incredibly scandalous idea that is the Holy Cross. The Church would have us do so, too, for She provides just one entrance antiphon for these three days, and that comes at the beginning of today’s Mass, and it says:

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    This antiphon is adapted from Saint Paul’s letter to the Galatians (6:14) in which he spends most of the letter chastising the community – even to the point of calling them “stupid” (3:1) – for taking their eyes off Jesus and the Gospel and everything that Saint Paul has taught them, and instead looking back to the Jewish law and all its artificial marks of righteousness. But we dare not condemn them so quickly. Because, quite frankly, we have to understand their faltering faith in light of our own.

    For us, now removed a couple of thousand years past the Crucifixion of our Lord, the Cross seems pretty standard – it almost doesn’t even phase us any more. We see it in church, we probably have one or more in our homes, and we might even wear one around our neck pretty often. And so, I think, the Cross may have lost some of its very important impact: an impact Jesus’ disciples certainly experienced as they fled in fear. It’s an impact Saint Paul’s Church in Galatia would have experienced too, and perhaps explained their trying to find justification in other ways.

    Because the cross was terrifying. And not only that, the cross was scandalous. It was saved for the dregs of society, for the worst of the worst. For those who were a problem for society. It was saved for the likes of Barabbas, for heaven’s sake! And the unrepentant thief. And yet, that is where our Lord went at the end of his life on earth. Nobody in Jesus’ day would have been inspired by this awful display. Saint Paul acknowledges as much in his first letter to the Corinthians when he says, “But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1:23).

    But if people in that day missed the importance of Jesus embracing and dying on the cross, then they missed his entire message too. Because it was every bit as scandalous that Jesus ate with sinners and touched lepers. Just as scandalous as the cross was his getting up at supper and taking off his outer garments, tying a towel around his waist, and washing the feet of the disciples. That was the job of a servant, but then he did come to serve not to be served. That was the job of a slave, but then he did come to set us free from our ancient sinfulness.

    As scandalous as the Cross was for the early Church, it is also deeply problematic for the Church today. Because we live in a society that values freedom, convenience, and bright shiny happiness – none of which, I dare say, you’ll find on the Cross. In our society, we might boast that there is a pill for almost every ailment, even if they come with a horrifying list of side-effects. In our society, we have convenience down to a science: we eat fast food, we bank and shop online and delight in free overnight shipping, we lose our minds in the line at the DMV. In our society, we do our best to spin every situation into some kind of false happiness, with painted smiles and happy music and all kinds of glitzy advertising.

    We’re more than happy to have a Resurrection, thank you, but the Cross … well that’s just not something we’re open to embracing. And the problem with that is that living the Gospel requires that we take up our own crosses and follow our Lord (Matthew 16:24). So our aversion to the Cross, both in the ancient Church and now, is a real obstacle to our life of faith, a real obstacle to our eternity.

    The cause of the obstacle, I would assert – at least in my own spiritual life – is that on the Cross, we see our own sins. The real scandalous part of the Cross for us is that our Savior had to go there to free us from our sins. What makes us turn our heads away and avert our gaze is that we can’t bear to see that even our smallest sins have such horrible, scandalous consequences. The real scandal of the Cross is that the Word made flesh had to give up his own life in such a terrible death in order that I might live.

    What on earth are we supposed to do with that? How do we live with the fact that God’s only begotten Son died for us? Well, he tells us in today’s Gospel. “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” And he’s not just talking about washing feet, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Whatever he’s done for us, we’re supposed to do for others. If he’s forgiven us much, then we should never stop forgiving. If he has served us, then we have to serve others. If he has laid down our life for us, then we better do the same for the people in our lives. Anything less is an offense against the Holy Cross.

    As we gather on this Holy Thursday night, we know that the washing of the feet is a mere foreshadowing of the Cross. Jesus came to give himself completely so that we might have life. He washes feet, cleansing the disciples of their sins and making them fit for service. He offers his Body and Blood to be the food that sustains us on our journey. And he offers us our own crosses that we might have a share in his own, leading us onward to eternal life.

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, I think Herod was asking the right question.  Sure, he was asking it for all the wrong reasons, but still, it is the right question.  And that question is, “Who is Jesus?”

    What Herod was hearing about Jesus is pretty much what the disciples told Jesus when Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?”  Elijah, or one of the prophets, or maybe even John the Baptist.  But Herod was the one who killed John so he knew that couldn’t be it, so who is he really?  Herod kept trying to see him, and of course, he’d have more than ample opportunity soon enough, after Jesus is arrested.

    So we have the question too.  Oh, we know well enough – intellectually – who Jesus is, but we still have to answer that question in our hearts.  Who is Jesus for us?  We know he is not just some prophet; that he is not like anyone who lived before or after him.  But have we stopped being intrigued by the question, have we lost our fascination with Jesus?  Herod kept trying to see Jesus, and it’s the right instinct, or at least it is for us.  We have to keep trying to see him too, whether that takes us to a rereading of the Gospels or to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or to contemplative prayer or even to service to the poor.  Whatever the case, fascination with Jesus is the right way to go, and we have to let ourselves be intrigued by the question again.  Who is Jesus for us?

  • Memorial Day

    Memorial Day

    Today’s readings: James 3:13-18; Psalm 72; Matthew 5:38-48

    I was talking to one of our parishioners today who is on a local board that, among other things, hires police officers for their municipality. He was telling me how hard it is to find qualified people willing to serve these days. I wasn’t surprised to hear it. I’ve read a lot over the last several years about how people are not going into service-related professions any more. The priesthood is, of course, no stranger to that phenomenon.

    So maybe it’s a little ironic that we spend today honoring those who have given their lives in service to our country. It’s a little like we’re saying “thanks for doing that, but please don’t ask me to serve.” And our Lord would admonish us for that kind of societal attitude; he didn’t give us the Gospel so that we could do nothing about it.

    In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the famous “but I say to you” sayings of Jesus. He takes very familiar religious practices of his day, and then cranks them up a notch. Believers are not supposed to be on autopilot; we are supposed to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of others. If we’re asked to give, we have to do it expecting nothing in return. When we love, we are called to do it when it is completely inconvenient, and toward those who we might not prefer to love.

    Service is not optional for the Christian disciple. Laying down our lives is simply doing what our Lord has shown us how to do. If he could die on the cross for us, we can die to ourselves and give our lives in service to others, so they might know God’s love and mercy.

    We truly honor today those who have given their lives for our country. Without their sacrifice, we might not have the freedoms we enjoy today. If we would truly honor their service and their selflessness, then we have to set aside our selfish ambitions as Saint James encourages us in our first reading. To truly honor our fallen heroes, we have to make use of the freedom that they fought for in a way that frees others as well.

    Most of all, we have to work to change the attitude of our society. We have to earnestly set aside selfish ambition and entitlement or become a society that is not truly free. If we’re slaves to ambition, then we will accomplish little individually or as a society. We have to pray for religious vocations and also vocations of service to our country and community. We have to encourage our children and grandchildren to give of themselves in their profession. That is what will make us truly free.

    And that is what would honor our fallen service men and women most of all.

  • Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    The Church sees this evening’s Mass as the beginning of a three-day Liturgy that embodies our Lord’s passion, death and resurrection. These three days are the Paschal Mystery, in which we see our Lord’s love and Divine Mercy poured out freely on sinners – which is to say, of course, on you and me. No one in this church has merited this Divine Mercy; it is freely given, and if we have prepared ourselves properly this Lent, freely received.

    At the beginning of every Liturgy there is an introit or entrance antiphon. It’s a brief scriptural verse that provides the mindset, if you will, that the Church wants us to have as we pray that Liturgy. For these three days, the Church gives us an adaptation of the fourteenth verse of the sixth book of Saint Paul’s letter to the Galatians:

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    The Church wants us, appropriately enough, to focus on our Lord who is, after all, the whole reason we’re here tonight, and for the rest of these days. More specifically, the Church wants us to reflect during this most holy three-day liturgy on our Lord’s Cross. And quite honestly, that’s kind of inconvenient. It’s hard to gather people together to celebrate the Cross – it’s not pretty and it doesn’t portray the glitzy kind of happy message that beckons Christians to church.

    It’s always been that way. In the early days of Christianity, they knew the cross all too well. They saw it on almost a daily basis. What had been intended to provide an ignominious and painful death to the worst criminal offenders soon enough became the way to execute all those who were politically inconvenient, most especially Christians who refused to take up the worship of pagan gods which was required by the government of the day.

    But even now, quite honestly, who wants to look at the cross? We don’t like pain or grief or anything like that. We take a pill for every malady, even braving a horrifying list of side-effects. To those who have experienced the death of a loved one, we offer meaningless platitudes like “everything happens for a reason,” and then we expect them back at work in no more than three to five days, functioning and behaving just as they did before. We anesthetize ourselves with drink, or drugs, or hours in front of the television or computer, or immersing ourselves in work, so that we don’t have to confront the difficulties in our relationships, or family lives, or whatever else might be on our plates. So for us, reflecting on the cross is just too painful, and glorying in the cross – well, that’s just ridiculous.

    But we know the Truth: we know that it is only by our Lord’s Cross that we have won salvation; we know that we too have been called to take up our own crosses and follow our Lord; we know that we have been given an example and that we need to follow it – we know that if we don’t glory in the Cross, we can never have a resurrection. And so during these three days, I’d like to suggest some ways that we can reflect on the Cross and glory in it, that we might come at last to Easter glory.

    Today we see in the Cross our call to service. But by service, I don’t mean the light and fluffy things we see as service – it’s not a quick service project, or writing a check to do our little part of handling a need. Those things are nice, but they don’t really measure up to the example our Lord gives us today. Our Lord’s service was one of kenosis – the Greek word for “emptiness.” Our Lord emptied himself of his own will so that he could completely embody the Father’s will. He did that to save us from our sins. So the service our Lord calls us to today is one of emptying our own will out so that we can be filled by God’s will.

    Jesus emptied himself of his will to be served by serving in the most menial of ways. At the banquet, it was not the host who washed the hot, dirty and tired feet of the guests – it was instead the task for a servant or slave. But because none of those at the Last Supper thought himself low enough to take on that task, our Lord did it, and one wonders if Peter’s reluctance to have his own feet washed was because he didn’t want our Lord to stoop down and serve him, or if it was because he knew it meant that he had to do the same thing. How willing are we to empty ourselves of our entitlement and instead to serve the poor and needy among us?

    Jesus emptied himself of his will by giving his body and blood to be our Eucharist – our reason for thanksgiving – and to sustain us on the journey to eternal life. He didn’t come just to give us directions to heaven. He came to bring us there, nourishing us along the way, helping us to get up when we’ve fallen, giving us food for body and spirit. He knew that it was only his Body and Blood that would overcome our profane human nature, that would give us enough a share in his Divine nature, that we could find our way to heaven. How willing are we to empty ourselves out, completely giving ourselves for others?

    Today the Cross we glory in is one of service – and it’s a service that is a complete giving of self for another. It’s love beyond words. It’s mercy and grace given with wild abandon. It’s an emptying out of self-will so that God’s will can be accomplished now and in the life to come. That Cross can be heavy and inconvenient and even repulsive at times. But it’s the only way to heaven.

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

  • Saturday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  My family has had a plaque with that very verse on it for as long as I can remember.  This has always been one of my favorite quotes from Scripture.  But it certainly is a hard thing to say, and Joshua makes that very clear in today’s first reading.  Serving the Lord makes demands of us.  We are called to live the Gospel and serve the poor and love everyone as we love God and forgive, and so much more.  We are also told that we have to turn away from the worship of other gods, whatever those might be for us.  Are they the gods of wealth, success, prestige, or self-interest?  We must turn away from them.  Are they gods that hold us back, bound to our own comfort, reluctance, or apathy?  We must cast all of that out.  Serving the Lord requires nothing less than total self-giving, because the Lord has first given everything to us.

    The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus reminds us today, belongs to those who are like children before him.  We must become childlike in our trust and obedience to the one who gives us life, love and salvation.  We are called to decide today whom we will serve.  Will it be the Lord, or someone or something else?  For those of us who step forward to receive the Eucharist today, the answer must always and only be, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”